Hewlett-Packard shares were plummeting by more than 11.5% in premarket trading Tuesday after the PC-giant beat Wall Street's earnings estimates in its fourth-quarter results on Tuesday, but missed analysts' top-line forecasts.

The company's purchase of U.K. software maker Autonomy last year has been thrust into the spotlight, as HP recorded a non-cash charge of around $8.8 billion related to the deal .

Investors were also digesting a Moody's downgrade of French debt by a notch, as the rating agency spoke of "multiple structural challenges" facing Europe's second-largest economy including the "gradual, sustained loss of competitiveness," as the predictability of the country's resilience to future euro area shocks diminishes.

Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average were down 11 points, or 31.96 points below fair value, at 12,727. Futures for the S&P 500 were up less than a point, or 1.19 points below fair value, at 1383. Futures for the Nasdaq were rising 5.25 points, or 3.18 points below fair value, at 2590.

The major U.S. stock averages soared Monday as better-than-expected housing market data gave extra mileage to a rally fueled by optimism over budget talks in Washington.

"After the string of losses during the past couple weeks, yesterday's rally was long overdue," said Joe Bell, senior equity analyst, Schaeffer's Investment Research. "Historically, the week of Thanksgiving has been strong and a continuation of Mondays momentum wouldn't surprise me. We are seeing extremes in some of the sentiment data we track, making the potential upside outweigh the potential downside. When you throw in the fact that December has historically been a strong month, we think the there is good potential for higher price action through the end of 2012."

The Census Bureau said Tuesday that housing starts rose to an 894,000 annual rate in October from a downwardly revised 863,000 in September. It also reported that building permits fell to an annual rate of 866,000 in October from a downwardly revised 890,000 in September.

On average, economists were expecting housing starts of 840,000 and building permits of 865,000 for last month.

At 12:15 p.m. EST, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke speaks to the Economic Club of New York, followed by 20 minutes of questions and answers.

The FTSE 100 in London was down 0.12%, while the DAX in Germany was up 0.23%. Eurozone finance ministers were meeting in Brussels Tuesday to discuss the release of the next tranche of financial aid to Greece.